Apple Business Desktop Computer Product Lines

For a company that only controls something like three percent of the computer market, there are way too many Apple Macintosh desktop computer product lines, let me tell you.

There’s the Power Mac G5, G5 Dual, and G5 Quad. There’s the iMac G5 in three sizes. There’s the eMac. And several versions of the Mac Mini. It’s enough to make a grown man weep.

Fortunately, we are able to winnow out some models that are less appropriate for business desktop use.

The Power Mac G5, with its dual-core and dual-chip/dual-core versions, has far more power than you’ll need on a standard business desktop — in fact, it’s probably more machine than you need for your Power User, unless your Power User is doing some pretty heavy-duty processing chores.

And we skip over the eMac, which targets the education market.

The Mac Mini, which comes as a cute little box with no monitor or keyboard (you buy them separately) is really an introductory system, for those fallen-away Windows users who can’t resist the siren call and want to see if it’s really all that marvelous. It does work, though.

The main brand for the mainstream business customer is the iMac on Intel, so that’s what we’ll focus on. It will be a struggle, though, because of the differences beween the two platforms, to make sure we shop a configuration that’s a fair match for the Windows version of the AllBusiness.com Standard Business Desktop Computer.

Apple is moving its entire product line over to Intel processors, which means the entire confusing mélange will be decommissioned at some point. The iMac is already being offered on Intel. If you are newly considering moving to the Macintosh, you’re well advised to invest in the Intel versions that are coming out now; it will save you headaches. (If you already have Macintoshes, it doesn’t matter which you buy; the issues you’ll have to deal sooner or later with will be the same whether you add another few Moto-Macs or start buying MacIntels now.) For our report, we’ll stick with the new Intel model iMac.